


savage and bitter

by kiiouex



Series: TRC Kink Prompts [2]
Category: Raven Cycle - Maggie Stiefvater
Genre: Choking, Discussion of character death, Existential Wangst, M/M, Rough Sex
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-04-22
Updated: 2017-04-22
Packaged: 2018-10-22 12:50:59
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,983
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/10697376
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/kiiouex/pseuds/kiiouex
Summary: Kavinsky’s expression is bleak obsidian, and he reaches out to cup Proko’s face, almost soft, his other hand still a trembling fist on Proko’s shirt. “What number do you think you are?”





	savage and bitter

**Author's Note:**

> heyy this is another one of [those kink prompts](http://kiiouex.tumblr.com/post/159557745989), this one was #49 'I don't care if they're watching, I'm not done with you yet' for Prokopinsky and uh, probably has very little to do with that tbh, I rolled the kink dice and choking came up so. this is what we've got now.
> 
> Usual thanks to [this lady](http://archiveofourown.org/users/telekinesiskid) for beta reading even though it's more like _bully reading_ she's so mean about typos

It’s a long ride home from the hospital. Proko stares out the window and listens to the radio and tries not to look at Kavinsky. There’s Bulgarian rap playing, K’s favorite, but he’s dangerously silent in the driver’s seat, cheating the speed limit whenever he knows there aren’t cameras, not slowing down even when he knows there are, daring law enforcement to come and try their luck against him when he’s in a mood like this.

Out the window, Proko’s not focused enough to see houses or cars passing, just the blur, and the blur fades into something else, the rush of some other night, and he can’t even remember now if it was pills or cars, just lights rushing by too fast for him to follow, weird and dizzily hot, either headlights charging in to collide with him or the tilt of a room as he tipped down and the floor rose up to meet him.

That had been another night, another place, and he doesn’t even _remember_ it right, can’t be hurt by what he can’t recall. Proko watches a car on the other side of the road hurtling towards them, imagines it swerve, imagines the sound of the Mitsu’s hood crumpling so real he thinks he must have heard it before, and then the car passes, fantasy gone, and Kavinsky’s fumbling in his lap one-handed for a smoke. The collision’s more likely to come from their side.

He can remember what happened the night before, but doesn’t want to, wants it to be as muddy as last time, hazy and too slow to dredge through. Even though last time was _different_ , even though this time he’s coming home from the hospital, still in one piece, still alive like he’d been the day before, Proko wonders if he’d know for sure, and doesn’t think he would. There’s mud and blood trapped under his ragged nails; proof, or proof of K’s eye for details?

Kavinsky pulls up outside his own house, parking on the curb since there’s already a wrecked Mitsubishi sitting in the garage, waiting to be scrapped, alongside his mother’s dusty Jaguar. K had fucked around under the hood a while ago to stop it from running. When he turns the engine off, the music dies, and for a moment there’s nothing, just K taking a drag and Proko just – waiting, because it’s Kavinsky and he’s so used to letting Kavinsky take the lead, because for the last six months it’s been hard to get too far and whether that’s a _side effect_ or just instinct, it’s what he’s gotten used to.

It’s an intimidating pause, the kind that puts Proko on the back foot, and he starts, “K,” not sure what to say but needing some of the clutter from his head out in open air.

Kavinsky shakes his head before he can fill in the rest. The jerk of his chin is too sharp; bad mood, black mood. “Get in,” he says, nothing about him kind, and Proko does as he’s bidden, going on ahead of Kavinsky into the house; he’s spent more nights there than in his dorm room. The shoes he slips off joins another pair of his, and he doesn’t need to wait for Kavinsky to follow the stairs up to K’s bedroom. It’s probably the last place he slept, a day or two ago, not counting the hospital or backseat naps in anyone’s car.

What had happened last night? He’d been drunk for it, remembers drinking a lot, swallowing what he’d been given, swallowing more when he’d noticed K’s eyes watching his throat with that dirty smirk, and then there’d been cars - did he get behind the wheel, did he wander onto the track? It’s the same as that other night he won’t remember, by sheer force of will, and Proko falls back onto Kavinsky’s bed, eyes shut, head a mess and glad for it.

K’s probably outside, sulking and smoking, and Proko’s not really in a hurry to see him so soon, not when he’s still got that hard edge to his glare. It’s not the fun kind of mean simmering in him, it’s the kind where he’ll find a gun and a contemplative set of bullets and start asking the kinds of questions Proko can’t answer for him.

His phone survived the previous night intact, and Proko flicks through the messages the others have left for him; Skov sent a few pictures from the party’s aftermath, a spatter of blood on concrete that might be Proko’s, neither of them know for sure. Swan said ‘ _Got your car and your keys, come get them whenever’_. Jiang says ‘ _K’s not answering his phone, text back if you’re alive’._

 _‘I’m dead’_ , Proko taps out, then erases it, says instead, ‘ _At K’s place, still breathing_.’

Jiang cares enough to actually check his phone, and the reply comes fast, ‘ _We’ll be there soon_.’ Of course the three of them are together; without Kavinsky and Proko they tend to cluster, no magic in any of their hands but the taste of it still curled in their lungs like secondhand smoke. Being close to Kavinsky is a knife to the chest, and it eases in slow and warm enough that it takes a very long time to notice.

K gets upstairs eventually, finds Proko just lying there, still and tired, head ringing from either the night before or the one before that – they’re starting to run together, and he’ll never know which of a dozen things that’s a result of, brain chemistry or intoxicants or all his pieces wrongly disassembled.

For a moment, K just looks at him, and there’s still that dull, dark shadow to his eyes, something worse than usual. It reminds Proko of those nights when he comes back from his dreams with formless, broken things that chitter and hiss when Proko shakes them, that K doesn’t like to touch and that shift around if they’re left alone. Those non-objects get taken out and smashed to nothing with baseball bats, Proko with glee, K with something vindictive and fierce that Proko chooses not to question. He’s looking at Proko about the same way now.

“K,” Proko tries again, a little steadier this time. “I’m good. Doctors cleared me. So you can like – you can relax.” Maybe it’s presumptuous to assume Kavinsky was any kind of worried, maybe he was just pissy he had to leave his party early, but his eyes are too hollow, mouth too grim, and Proko finds he’s edging back, just a little, as Kavinsky starts to press in. It’s too natural to make space for K, for his legs to part until Kavinsky can step between him, to lean back and give K room even when that means baring his throat and K’s hand snakes out to catch him by the collar.

“ _Fuck,_ Proko,” Kavinsky says, and it might be the first time he’s spoken since the hospital, a heavy exhale full of smoke. “Do you actually not care, or are you just too fucked up to remember?”

The real answer is an elusive thing somewhere in between, and Proko shrugs his crooked shoulders, a completely unsatisfying offering. The hand on his collar yanks him up, not lightly, and he tries, “I don’t know, K, it’s like – if I think about it, then I have to figure it out, and that’s like – it’s fucking weird. I get that it _happened_ , and I’m glad you brought me back, but like – if it keeps happening? _Fuck_.”

Kavinsky’s expression is bleak obsidian, and he reaches out to cup Proko’s face, almost soft, his other hand still a trembling fist on Proko’s shirt. “What number do you think you are?”

 _Two_ is Proko’s answer, is always Proko’s answer, through near-misses and nights he can’t remember and too many drugs and throwing up in rooms that spin around him. He’s the second one; he can’t face being any more than the second one. But saying that to Kavinsky is asking to hear the real number, fantasy shattered, and that’s just too much. So he says, “I know I’m the only one for you, babe,” voice warm with stupidity, and K’s hand smacking across his face is an absolute relief.

He lets himself fall back on the bed, safe in familiar ground while Kavinsky crawls on top of him. The black mood hasn’t filtered out of Kavinsky yet, and his hands are greedy on Proko’s skin, one wrapped around his throat, the other pinning one of his wrists. He’s letting Proko feel what it’s like to be beneath him, thumb shifting over the tender skin of his neck, a warning, a teaser, and when he finally speaks the words drip honey-slow from his lips. “Do you think you’re fucking immortal?”

Proko blinks, most of his attention on the fingers tense over his windpipe and the possibility that they might press down. He kind of is immortal, a real-life Lazarus, and he kind of knows better than anyone that his body can break, that it doesn’t take too much for some precise little thing in him to sever. What had it been last time? Cars or drugs or Kavinsky?

There’s no good answer to give, and his mouth opens, ready to offer something inane and get another taste of the hot crack of K’s knuckles, but K wasn’t really waiting for his response; the hand on his throat squeezes down before he can get a word out, not enough to hurt yet, not enough to shut him up, but he does anyway, attention completely lost to K’s coarse fingers.

It’s a mix of inclination and conditioning that Proko doesn’t like to put words to, but his reaction is immediate; he arcs up under Kavinsky, appealing, trying to find the soft edge to that hooded gaze and failing, and enjoying that all the more. It’s nice to get K gentle, stoned, hazy and slow, coloring his skin with love bites; it’s better to get him like this, rough hands, all dark hunger and demands.

Kavinsky eases back off Proko, tells him, “Hurry up and strip,” pulling back just enough for Proko to shimmy out of his clothes. Of course K doesn’t take his own clothes off; that advantage is his. Bare for K, Proko feels him looking him over, and there’s a bruise over one of his shoulders like a spill of paint, there’s a bandage over his abdomen, there’s a hundred little nicks and cuts and lumps, and Prokopenko isn’t pretty, but he is exactly what K made him to be. He can barely remember what’s fresh and what’s old and what he’d had before, on his original skin.

He turns around without needing to be asked, and any other day K might be approving, but today is the best-slash-worst Proko’s ever seen him, today his whole reward is a hand on his back, shoving his face down. The sheets are filthy from the two, days ago, it’s cold enough for him to shiver, and Kavinsky’s handling him in that knife’s edge way that makes him wonder if this is going to hurt more than it’s not, if he’s going to surface in the same number of pieces as when he was submerged.

It doesn’t matter. K’s hands run along the ridges of his spine, settle against his hips like he was made to fit them, and when he presses back over Proko there’s enough heat starting to pool in Proko’s belly to ignore the gooseflesh rising on his skin. “You are not immortal,” Kavinsky tells him, nails digging into his hip. “You’re here because of _me_ , and you are not so fucking arrogant you think I’m going to bring you back every time you get _stupid_.”

What had happened last night? It absolutely didn’t matter, it had been a near miss or a direct hit, it had been lights behind his eyes, too bright, the world falling away until it was out of his reach, but he was back again now, Kavinsky’s teeth in him, sharp and grounding, and he would always be the second Prokopenko.

A slap to his ass, sharper than he’s expecting, and Proko shudders; Kavinsky’s mouth is working on him like he’s honestly trying to break the skin, and he doesn’t care, it hurts and it’s real and that’s all he needs. “Fuck, K,” he says, breath coming pitchier than he’d intended, “Are you going to make it good or not?”

Kavinsky’s response is to shove his head down and grind his face back into the mattress. He waits for a moment, checking Proko’s not dumb enough to come back up, and then his hand finds its way back to settle on Proko’s throat like it’s the most natural thing in the world. K’s finger finds his asshole, presses in, and Proko already knew this was going to be rough but he still pushes his head further down at the pressure.

That’s how K gets him worked up, nails on the back of his neck, still scratching more than choking, just letting him feel tender, and other hand adding fingers, working him open, not gentle but still giving Proko what he wants. Kavinsky doesn’t say anything, but Proko can still feel him angry through all his rough touches, possessive and bitter and _owning_ in a way that Proko will not protest.

There’s the sound of a car outside, which he can ignore, and then voices on the stairs indoors, which he can’t. He’s about ready and he wants K to himself, wants to just get taken apart and to feel himself handled like he ought to be, more proof like he desperately needs. Through the door he hears Jiang saying, “He said they’re here,” and then the rest of the pack’s in the room with them, because none of them fucking knock, eyes shifting over the obscene arc of Proko’s back all the way to the three fingers K’s got stuffed in him, and that controlling grip on Proko’s neck.

“You really don’t waste any time, do you?” Swan drawls. No one’s leaving; Kavinsky does not withdraw his fingers. There’s a choking sound buried halfway down Proko’s throat, the urge to rock back on K’s hand warring with some need to not get so absolutely dominated in front of the others. Yes, they’ve all seen him under K before, but not when the mood’s quite like this – there’s nothing playful about the way Kavinsky’s handling him.

“I don’t remember inviting spectators,” Kavinsky snarls to the others, but getting up to force them out would be relinquishing his grip on Proko, and he’s not about to do that; Proko finally gets out a whine, tries to wriggle forward an inch, but K responds by stretching out the fingers inside him, both good and painful enough to distract Proko with the need to grind his face further into the sheets while his hips work helplessly. K’s whisper is sick heat in his ear, words crawling over his skin like a spider; “I don’t care if they’re watching, I’m not done with you yet.”

Permission to stay roughly granted, the others circle around the bed, to get the best view of Proko, ass raised and mouth open, trembling with a heady blur of humiliation and need. He doesn’t usually care about an audience, but usually he’s not getting wrecked; Kavinsky’s hands clench down on his throat for the first time, all pressure, enough to kick up a scrap of primal fear and start him writhing, reaching around to knock Kavinsky away.

Jiang snags his hands before he can, forces them back down, stretched out flat against the mattress. K eases up on him; Proko sucks in a ragged rush of air, able to look up dumbly and meet Jiang’s unapologetic eyes.

“We were really worried about you, y’know,” Skov tells him, leaning in enough to run a hand through Proko’s hair. “And you got K so fucking mad.”

 _They_ know what had happened last night, but Proko isn’t going to ask, isn’t going to know, is going to just exist in this moment with Kavinsky’s fingers stroking up inside him, Jiang heavy on his wrist, Skov stroking his cheek, gentle, before he’s unable to resist shoving two fingers into Proko’s open mouth. It’s about all Proko can do to not bite down when K curls his fingers inside him, hitting something that makes his legs tremble and hips push back.

Kavinsky is not in the mood to let him enjoy it. His grip tightens; Proko sees Skov watching the bulge of K’s knuckles, definitely interested, hears Jiang swearing as it suddenly takes that much more effort to keep his hands down, hears Swan saying ‘should’ve just tied him up’ and Kavinsky reply ‘Well I don’t need to now, do I?’

It lasts long enough for Proko’s lungs to panic, for his fingers to scrabble pointlessly at the sheets, for him to feel every twitch of K’s fingers in his ass and know that is K’s hands on him, every inch of him owned, every inch of him pulling in different directions all for Kavinsky. He comes with a strangled gasp, with a desperate rasp for air, and when he’s allowed to breathe again his body heaves, forehead pressing into the sheets, feeling empty and exposed as K finally pulls out his fingers.

Jiang does not release his hands. Proko doesn’t need to look behind him to know he’s not done yet; K smacks him on the ass again, hard, just to get him groaning again. Skov’s fingers are still in his mouth, sliding over his tongue, tasting of old beer and leather, and Proko does bite down when Kavinsky shoves into him, teeth clamping around Skov’s fingers like that’s going to save him.

Someone’s hand is in his hair, pulling; someone’s nails are on his wrists, digging in. Kavinsky is fucking him with awful thrusts that clearly aren’t meant to be fun. Proko’s awareness is getting hazy; and it isn’t just the choking, it’s being at the center of too much attention, it’s his dick still twitching against his stomach, oversensitive, it’s knowing how bruised and fucked up and sore he’s going to feel tomorrow. Punishment for the night before, or assurance, or just a gangbang because fuck, why not? There are so many hands digging into his skin Proko feels overheated, overwhelmed, dizzy and hot in too many places at once. That constricting vice bites down on his windpipe, and the world trembles, black, just for him.

The rest of it is a haze; when he isn’t gasping, lungs screaming for air, he’s grinding Skov’s fingers between his teeth. It’s the only part of him he can really move, the only outlet he has for every deep and scraping shudder of Kavinsky trying to make him feel it, trying to make him unable to forget it. Jiang would probably be biting his way down Proko’s neck, if K’s fingers weren’t in the way; he settles for Skov instead, still having fun as he keeps Proko pinned down, fingers bloodlessly white with the effort of it.

It’s exhausting, being dragged along the edge of consciousness. Proko breathes when Kavinsky allows him to, and maybe that’s symbolic, not that he’s in any state to appreciate it, and not that Kavinsky’s going to say as much with the other three in the room. He just had the jerk of his hips, the shudder of Proko’s response, and the fact that Proko’s throat is going to be a deep and shameless purple by tomorrow. Maybe even a real handprint; Proko shivers at the thought of that, and K’s hand closes and he bucks, cries out, eyes watering, while someone laughs and pets his hair.

Someone else – Swan? It’s getting hard for him to see – hooks a finger around the other side of Proko’s mouth, as it hangs open to rasp in air. They’ve played this game before too, but Kavinsky snaps, “Fuck off,” harsh and sudden. The hands on him retreat, all but Jiang’s, and with what hazy sense Proko has left, he sees Skov and Swan glance at each other, their first realization that this is something different, not just K going rough for fun. They back off with a nervous air, and in the space that remains, Kavinsky’s hold on Proko gets tighter.

He presses down hard on the black bruise of his shoulder, makes him cry out with the pain of it; then does the same over the fresh hospital bandage. The feeling is white and sharp enough that Proko gasps silently around the pain of it, lips moving but throat so raw and rough from everything else that he can’t manage a scream.

Kavinsky finishes with a shudder and gritted teeth, the only pair of hands left on Prokopenko. Proko is only half-present and mostly numb below the waist, but he feels the heat spill out inside him, the hand on his throat tighten, tighten and he tries to sob, feels the rasp of it drag up his gullet and chokes on the noise. His legs still tremble, automatic reaction, just nerves twinging with too much, too much, and when Kavinsky lets him go he slumps sideways, every bit of him aching, every piece of him used, nothing left to help him stay up on his own.

In the space and the silence that follows, he just breathes. The ache becomes easier to bear; he fills his lungs in shallow breaths, careful gulps of air, sore and weak and relaxed like he hasn’t been for hours. Grounded again; not a fake thing, a dream thing, a hospital patient to be handled with care. He is where he belonged, where he ought to be, and he feels light as he whistles in another breath, holds it, exhales. Kavinsky lights up again; he keeps one hand on Proko’s head, tangled in his hair, not tugging but able to. Proko can tell K still isn’t happy but at least he’s spent, the worst of it over.

“So I guess we’re not talking about it?” Jiang asks; Swan elbows him, not lightly, before Kavinsky can shut him up himself. K’s eyes are burning coals; he takes in a long drag, that Proko envies, but his own throat is scorched enough without drawing in smoke.

What had happened last night is now irrelevant; Prokopenko is back in his place, well-fucked and anchored, and he sprawls out, all tender skin and aching muscles, second-hand smoke and sweat. Skov looks like he wants to suggest a round two, or maybe just drag Swan off to a different room, but Kavinsky’s temper is still a barbed and venomous thing that no one wants to step on. At length, Skov asks the last question he can’t sit on, eyes on Proko’s bandage, the patch of red spreading out over it. “Are you the same one?”

He probably has a better idea of that than Proko does himself, could have seen K in this mood before, could have seen the aftermaths of all those falls Proko remembers taking but doesn’t remember getting up from. Maybe this much has even happened before – and what would upset Kavinsky more, having to go back into his head, to sift through the cold meat that had been his best friend, the effort of bringing back one that _works_ , or the near-miss, the repetition, that sinking-gut feel that if Kavinsky was anyone else in the world then Prokopenko would not be on his _nth_ chance?

K’s gaze is an oil well, and he looks at Skov like he wants him to drown in it; he doesn’t stop Proko from answering.

“I’m the only one,” he says, and it’s true until he remembers otherwise, it’s true so long as _truth_ is whatever he can grab out of the kaleidoscope of his memory.

**Author's Note:**

> thanks for reading y'all! Can you believe I've done over 50 trc fics, I can't, what am I doing with myself


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